Shooting Stars in the Sierra Ancha

I recently returned from an overnight trip to the Sierra Ancha. This is a range that is close to my heart, because it was one I visited briefly during my first trip to Arizona after being gone for nearly 15 years.

As my friend Ellen likes to say, this place is special, sacred. You can feel it when you are here. Something of the ethereal is close to the skin. No wonder there are many sightings of monsters and ghosts, of messages on the wind and in strange dreams beneath glowing stars.

We arrived in late morning, so I decided to hike down Rose Creek. Little did I expect, I encountered a small female bear. I was as stunned as she was. I have a certain level of fear about bears; they seem so unpredictable. Their demeanor can quickly change from aloof to threatening, and within seconds.

The bear looked at me, then Lily, my 13 pound dog. I realized that the only way out was to back up since we were surrounded by thick, thorny berry bushes. Lifting Lily high, we eased away, watching the coal black eyes look back at us. Thankfully, we escaped safely through the berry corridor.

Roaming the back roads is always a part of any adventure that I consider an adventure, and Ellen and I set off for Buzzard Roost Canyon the next day. Rocking through the boulders and slopes, and down, down, down into the mouth of the canyon, we went far away from any human activity. Spotting perfect primitive camp sites and canyon songbirds lifting off of the schist and gneiss, what else is there but this?

 

Lying awake at midnight in my tent, listening to the soft steps of skunks along the creek, I am here. The immensity of the night sky overwhelms me. I wish for one star to fall. Minutes later, the blaze and the descent.

Water in the desert is precious, and to find a flowing creek in the Sonoran is a magical thing. After miles of climbing and bumping down forest roads, we were delighted to find Spring Creek by way of Jerky Butte.

Even a shallow swimming hole can relieve a tired, hot traveler. I am a longtime traveler.

Waking up at sunrise, I hiked along a new road that leads to a development that’s in an in-holding of the national forest. The illuminated cliffs of the Sierra Ancha Mountains caught first light. Being in deep canyons feels like I am returning to the quiet, still place where my true self emerges. The light shines on these places, but it occurs one hour at a time.

If you pay close attention on any walk, you will notice things. Small things that can make you wonder why you ever thought you were alone.

 

Fall is my favorite season, which feels like a mere two weeks in AZ. I do love the winter months here, but sometimes I miss those real two-three months of serious autumn that I experienced in Indiana. The kind that reminds me of the fall foliage of my birthplace, the sound of the wood stove’s cracks-and-pops, feeling chilly enough to put on an extra big flannel shirt when the sun sets, and that deep, pungent odor of decay.

I savor it when I am in the mountains.

 

As with any range, a person can spend an entire lifetime exploring and never fully get a complete picture of all of its secrets. And, isn’t that the point, really, to know that a place is composed of so much enchantment it is impossible to contain?

When the disciples asked Jesus when the new world will come, he replied, “What you look forward to has already come, but you do not recognize it.” There is no outside heaven or planetary escape of tech fantasy. This is it. This is the kingdom.

I hope to continue to recognize it for years to come.

Strange Bedfellows: Grappling with the Private World and the Public Life of Creativity

A. Sato, 2014

It’s been a while since I have written anything. No poems. No essays. No short stories.

When I look at the newsfeeds of my prolific friends, I feel a little guilty. “Have you been writing,” one friend asks? Another inquires if I am at least submitting work for publication. Strangely, I have made scant progress on anything related to my own creative fiction and nonfiction.

This uncomfortable truth doesn’t take away the tinges of guilt and envy when I am surrounded by writers and artists who are producing circles around me. And, sure, enlightenment says this isn’t a race or competition… but, we all know it is. At least, the business of what we do compels us to be productive. To produce.

Most of us need the feedback, accolades, connection, and (although laughable at times) financial support we gain from taking our work to the streets. Some might argue the value of the creative process is moving through the creative process, as if just doing is enough.

For spiritualists and believers, the creative process is communication between self and Spirit or God. For others, and I would dare say the majority, writing, painting, music, etc. is our means of expression, communicating our deepest, most intimate selves (souls?) to the world (and, hey, maybe even the means to earn a living).

There are also many others whose work is the catalyst for social and political change – a meaningful vision, an ideal.

Mesquite Grove – A. Sato, 2015

Back to Me

Through all of the definitions and pressures to produce for reasons both menial and purposeful, I seem to have lost my way. For several months I worried that I was simply bored with my writing. I was restless. I wandered around looking for something I couldn’t seem to find.

Sheepishly, I took all of those “what is your true calling” quizzes. I re-read the Enneagram (Tragic Romantic 4, no surprise). I took all of the career path tests and continued to draw the Writer card. Dammit. My other choices: Clergy or Psychologist.

Writers are akin to preachers, after all, channeling the message of the unseen, unexpressed, and under-appreciated.

“Writers are healers… words are balm,” one friend reminds. The narrative of our pain can conjure healing.

But, lately, I am neither wordsmith evangelist nor wounded healer. Even poetry seems flat to me, a personal chore, like pumicing dead skin. That old glass slipper that once fit perfectly doesn’t seem to encapsulate my big toe now. Bluntly, I am fucking terrified.

Still, in my terror, I refuse to produce for the sake of saying, “Hey, look, I made something!” (says every potty-training toddler).

Another friend lamented, and I will paraphrase, “There are too many photographers and not enough readers.” I argued against this notion of “too many,” but can understand his point.

People are writing and producing art more than ever before with the advent of print-on-demand and the vanity press. We’re all looking for a little appreciation, I guess. To be heard, seen, validated. Through the billions of Tweets and fragments, photos and paintings, the practice of the creative life has been shanghaied.

Let me say it again: the practice…

I’m aghast at the grammatical errors found in professional articles and essays. If the pros can’t even manage the discipline to edit and hone skills, I really cannot rail against the amateur. In essence, we are in a creative frenzy, a race to stay ahead of the ADD public.

It’s as if, culturally speaking, we are still living the message of those 1990s Baby Einstein, Baby Monet, Baby Mozart cds … we believe talent just kinda makes itself. Everyone’s an artist, right?

Practice takes too long. Being unproductive means no attention. And, god forbid, the humble role of the student, of being willing to be taught.

Only the Ravens – A. Sato, 2015

The Muse is Dead… Long Live the Muse

None of this is exactly hot off the press news. And, I am not sure analyzing the state of the arts is going to alleviate my fucking terror at my own lack of motivation.

I’m driven by the same insecurity of silence. I want to have my muse back NOW and sell books that will actually be read. But, I am cursed with having to take my own mad advice.

So, maybe I will wait it out some more and see what shakes. Stay curious. Be zen about it.

Tomorrow I am going to one of my favorite mountains. She and I know I won’t share anything about it with you. Because, at least for now, the practice needs to be enough.

Unbound: A Modern Exile

When the child was a child,
it awoke once in a strange bed,
and now does so again and again.
Many people, then, seemed beautiful,
and now only a few do, by sheer luck.

It had clearly imagined Paradise,
and now can at most guess,
could not conceive of nothingness,
and shudders today at the thought.
― Song of Childhood, Peter Handke

And for the first time, he wished he were far away. Lost in a deep, vast country where nobody knew him. Somewhere without language, or streets.
― Paris, Texas, screenplay by Sam Shepard

On October 1st, I will be forty years old. The imaginings of a linear life have left me disappointed… the hands, the work, the “deal” – none of it mattered to me. I wandered through a variety of lifestyles, always feeling empty and restless. Restlessness seemed to be the precursor to my entire life – nothing can compare to the daydreams of a ten year old. There would be no sultry saviors, no absolution and no erasing the names. There would be a tapestry of longing and a growing compassion for process.

Recently, I made the decision to be truly honest in my decisions. I have written extensively on the subject of work, place and self-awareness. I have a fascination with those whose approach to life smashes barriers. In my twenties, I revolted against femininity and modern capitalism. I squatted in abandoned homes, I jumped tracks and I traveled with an unabashed, caustic personality that drove me to places I never thought I would see. I didn’t participate in the traditional life. I hoofed it with fellow wanderers and freaks. I saw to it that I would never, ever be owned or trapped.

During this time, I explored the trends of body and spirit dualism, eating disorders and body image. I exploited every revolting aspect of the flesh in hopes of making them beautiful. I danced and tripped on mushrooms. I would go without bathing or combing my hair. I pushed for a love of flesh – in its complete glory and eventual decay – because I did not know how to love my own mortal shell. I thought that salvation, or revolution, was found in the intersection of love and physicality. I wanted to be in my skin – lovely and horrible, yet completely body-authentic.

Throughout my thirties, I developed an interest in authenticity as commodity and trend. Authenticity became the battle cry of marketing firms and big brands. The migration from body wisdom to authentic identity of personhood was troubling; mainly because of the way the mainstream embraced the concept. The collective consciousness of Gen X was quickly and quietly overtaken by a new promise of being both successful and authentic. More people, particularly young people, embraced their weird uniqueness and eccentricities, and that was wonderful in many regards. However, this co-opted form of authenticity remained sophomoric and typically American. “I have a right to be me” became the empty shell of egocentric pursuits and isolation. More niche and fringe groups formed based on limited cogent forces – the individual became a composite of type. When a question was posed, the individual could simply fall back on adolescence, “You just don’t understand me!” Me went off the charts. Me denominated the market and continues to do so.

“Remember the quiet wonders. The world has more need of them than it has for warriors.”
― Moonheart, Charles de Lint

What would it be like to lose one’s identity? The movie Paris, Texas (screenplay by Sam Shepard) illustrates the need for an endless terrain and a loss of identity. The main character, Travis Henderson, becomes drawn to “forgetting” and being unknown in an unknown land, simply slipping the realities of tragedy, loss and addiction, Travis makes his way home only to choose to return to the land of unknown – the power of movement, following the crack-snap song of power lines that cut through otherwise desolate country.

Tragedy, however, need not be the only impetus for losing oneself to the world. Shamans, prophets and wisdom keepers tread the path of the unknown, the lost one. In shedding former identity, an understanding of place can be attained. One can transcend human boundaries, hearing the songs of crickets and owls and wearing the night like a coat that cannot be slipped. The wanderer becomes small yet great in smallness, silenced yet wise in the vacuum.

Personas can be shifted. Over the past few months, I have considered the random and unsuitable personas I have worn over the years. My general dissatisfaction with a monetary based system has also been a pinnacle factor in my desire to shift from laborer to vagabond. Perhaps persona is a modern development, a modern affliction. Did early man consider his uniqueness? Did he cultivate a collection of property or skills that helped him become alpha, popular and accepted?

There is a connection to the dog-order of humans and other pack animals. Somewhere along the evolutionary process, this aberration of self was developed in order to secure … well, security. With exaggerated limbs and features, bigger-faster-smarter, we rose and challenged. We amended. We edited. We made over and dominated in a pernicious quest for immortality.

Troubling Uniqueness

You may ask yourself, what is that beautiful house?
You may ask yourself, where does that highway lead to?
You may ask yourself, am I right, am I wrong?
You may say to yourself, my god, what have I done?

― Once in a Lifetime, Talking Heads

The paradox of the fascination with uniqueness is that it is made moot by context. How are we unique if not in the reflection of a communal norm? There would be no uniqueness without a benchmark. We are never separate, individual. There would be no concept of identity if we had no place within a larger social order. That is why the most isolated of tribes or individuals have a rich dreamscape that has not been eradicated by comparison.  In these worlds, plants become as alive as humans. Stones tell stories. Garbage is sacred. It is a mad world that invites weeds to the storyline.

Since the original concepts of loss of identity and regaining of self have nothing to do with pandering to a value based system, we as a culture have little regard for or understanding of those who move beyond what is acceptable. For example, the unique worldview of a person deeply entrenched in paranoid schizophrenia – without being medicated – perhaps represents the purest form of authenticity. The mentally ill and their schematics and dreamlands create fear and order in a tunnel almost devoid of common experience.

There has been much research on the subject of self and mental illness as well as self and shamanism. In this paradigm, there is room for all forms of perception and reality.

To jump off into cholla with dreams of remaining unharmed…

To climb the slick rock and see antelopes dancing in the shadows of light descending…

To know the names of every plant and rock… to call them when you are alone and need life to follow.

My life is changing. Nothing seems fixed as such – and in this shape-shifting, fluid state, I worry less about my life and my purpose. There is a dignity of ignorance I seek. You see, the unchanged world of beliefs and personas is an unforgiving one. In this static state, you are sick or well, pure or rotten. There is a collective desire to find Elysium in the status quo and the illusion of authenticity.

I don’t want to be clear; I want to be knee-deep and murky. I want to wade out when the songs of the sirens bellow across the turquoise. There is beauty in dissolution and chaos. Nature adores the ever-changing and amorphous. There is no regret in simply living without having one solid version of life and the beyond. Perhaps it is not for us to know. Perhaps being an animal among field songs and flight is a very good life, indeed.

Making Work a Conscious Act

I have had many jobs in my life. I have scrubbed toilets, bussed tables, sold trinkets, stripped and posed for an 80 year old sculptor. I have been a business owner; I have been a corporate drone. Perhaps my most important role, however, has been as a nonprofit professional, raising money for a myriad of good missions over the years. Still, looking back, I do not associate any of these roles with who I am as a human, nor would I have passed up the chance to quit any given job to pursue a life of exploration, learning and spiritual growth.

There is no job or career I have taken on that supplants my desire to run, to move, to wander this world with an inexhaustible curiosity no career could ever sate. I simply do not believe in career or job as being something natural to us. Work is of course a part of being alive. We work to eat, keep warm, find a mate and gain security… but work was never meant to consume us in such a structured manner of identity and value. The need to work would often arise with the need for outcome. Spontaneity, chance and flexibility revolved around the perils and payoffs of work – reward or lack thereof. As we formed community, roles were assigned, but again, work was the basis of an outcome and not a descriptor with false value and meaning assigned per se, until we began to move into such a context.

From industrial perils to blue collar masses to college-fresh degree holders entering into the career world, we have replaced the elements of work that make it work with fantasies of identity, power and prestige. Work no longer produced only results = i.e. food, house, car; work became our pinnacle form of identity and pride. Academic institutions pushed the new “educated worker” with the mantra of a more enlightened nation and a workforce of specialists, making higher wages. In fact, the past 80 years have funneled us into believing that we can earn our worth. This philosophy assumes that our worth is based on monetary gain, academic success, or – in the case of many conditioned women – our ability to work someone else’s gain.

The problems inherent in this phony empire of career pomp are becoming more apparent as the disparity of classes and make-believe markets are creating deeper gouges in the fabric of this economic dreamscape. But I am not writing about the current fiscal crisis and profound inequity between classes. Ultimately, what I argue is why must we even subject ourselves to this?

As someone who grew up in rural lower middle class/poverty Americana, I was – despite being a bright and relatively good student – encouraged to find a job at one of the local factories in our mid-sized community. On a positive day, my guidance counselor might have suggested community college. You see, poor, rural folks were to be tailored for industry. This was the early 90s – not the early 1900s.

Thankfully, my stubborn gene kept me from succumbing to limited suggestions, and I left the small town and traveled throughout North America, working various odd jobs to support me as I wrote and experienced a multitude of places I thought I might need to see: Seattle, Boston, New York, LA… and the plethora of tiny burgs full of artists and writers, weirdoes and geeks. My life living paycheck to paycheck felt normal – I existed day-to-day and actually don’t recall worrying about the next source of income, whether I’d have a savings account or if I could afford to fly back to Indiana when my 1980 Honda hatchback (with its still working 8-track player) finally and stubbornly gave in to the auto graveyard.

Of course, this story does not serve to advocate the life of the young vagabond to those who want to have kids and settle in to some kind of community. Perhaps the sheer fact of youth and curiosity led to me to this pathway, but I am most certainly happy I took this course and started the ebb of wanderlust at a time most appropriate for passage into adulthood.

This story, however, is not a moral fable about lessons that lead one to buy that house, that car, that oceanfront property. This story is about someone who has decided to leave every myth behind entirely. For me, success comes through community, creativity and self-expression. I don’t care if I if I ever own the latest gizmo x, y or z. I want the kind of life that distinguishes perceived need versus impact. I want the kind of freedom that doesn’t require upgrading product every year.

Now, I can hear you screaming, “Luddite!” at the top of your lungs, but what I am advocating is not an elimination of technology, but rather a moderation of reliance upon such. There are always vast benefits in being able to communicate and learn globally, relate to new scientific advances and build social activism on a level never once achievable. However, just as with any other product or outlet, we can reduce  blind adherence to buying these tools when we view them as tools and not an extension of worth. Any time I have worked with teens and early adults, I have witnessed the incredible social impact of owning the latest tech toy or cell. It truly is brand talking and not necessarily need or advancement of intellect or action.

Getting back to work… there are many choices at hand for those seeking more fulfillment in life and moving away from the 8am-6pm dregs. Some suggestions to reduce economic enslavement are as follows:

1. Outline what you want

As a survivor of domestic violence, this obvious fact-finding process was very arduous until I was able to honor the internal. Before any of us can begin to manifest work as an expression, we must know Self and our subsequent values, ethics and hopes. Make a list of your deepest, most purposeful intentions to begin.

2. Adjust your habits

Ah, this is where action comes into play. Many of my dissociative habits – such as drinking and running – were counterproductive to the life I outlined and the beliefs I held close. What habits do you allow to run the show? How do your habits prevent you from engaging in your life and the life you desire?

3. Resist fear

I recently heard from a wise female friend how she made a decision to stop the “scary movies” she was playing in her mind. I connected to this on an intuitive level – my life was almost held hostage by potential horrific scenes of future atrocities. In order to manifest something new, we can maintain a state of mind that receives the energy of the day and resists future posturizing.

4. Reach out and accept

Reaching out and forming community, as well as getting sage wisdom regarding our chosen paths, are essential elements to growth and moving into a work that truly meets our soul-needs.

Allow yourself the guidance to listen, learn and apply.

5. Pass it along

When the time is right, pay it forward! Think of the myriad ways you have been told, “no” and pass the gifts of independence to others.

When I think about the ongoing theme of dissuasion from my true talents and calling, I am even more motivated to help others cultivate a path that honors their values, beliefs and talents. Work – that is, the stuff we do to attain housing, food and security – need not become our primary purpose. Work can be supplemental, but our paths and expressions can be aligned with our life at large. Purpose is so different from work. Purpose transposes talents with communal benefits and blesses us beyond measure.

It is a true gift to begin to look at the quality of one’s life, even in dire economic or health circumstances. Open to the possibilities inherent in each day and remain a student – the world needs more iconoclasts, willing to bridge the pressures of society while supporting the ideologies related to independent thought, action and path.

Beasts we Know

“Even if she be not harmed, her heart may fail her in so much and so many horrors; and hereafter she may suffer–both in waking, from her nerves, and in sleep, from her dreams.”
― Bram Stoker, Dracula

“The beast in me
Is caged by frail and fragile bars
Restless by day
And by night rants and rages at the stars
God help the beast in me”
― Johnny Cash

In the story, the girl with blue eyes saves the terrible beast with love. The two are separate: the beauty and the beast, lightness and darkness. On polar ends we place them. We grow up believing this pair of opposites exists outside – we paint ourselves with those blue eyes, with that saving, sacrificing heart…

And watch those other beasts, and wait for love…

Both men and women grow up believing in the myth of the good rescuer: the one to subterfuge, to tame the mean beasts of the world. From the time we are able to understand words, the concept of “good” and “bad” – “yes” and “no” – are firmly reinforced through language and consequential behavior. Sometimes we ascribe the light and dark to genders, particularly when we are raised in a family where strict gender roles are performed – mommy is good and daddy is bad, for example, or where parents refrain from sharing the role of disciplinarian.

For those of us who grew up on farms or in very rural environments, nature provided more of a balance between a life of two extremes – in the wild, joy and pain intermingle. Animals are born and die. The spring brings new growth and winter brings closure. The injured and sick suffer, yet they continue to struggle to live and to heal. There is no such thing as mercy, or mercy killing. Death doesn’t always come swiftly or easily. Predators sometimes make it quick – sometimes drag out the suffering. Our humanity wants to intervene of course, label life with all sorts of adjectives. But it is only in us that these two separate entities: good and bad, grapple. Fundamentally, life is at work – opening and closing; opening and closing. There is an incredible teacher in this – beyond the use of words or written curricula.

For many of us, and especially as we become more and more urban, those original teachers become human and manmade. And, as we know, people experience the world through the lens of perceived reason, categorizing experience and inviting pleasure/avoiding pain. Our images of Self and Other are wrought with positive and negative narratives where the internal, or the core, is frightening, devouring… we avoid the internal discomfort of our realities, the multilayers of happenings and stimuli that cannot be understood but through the poorly formed, receptive external Self. When we cannot bear to even look at our external Self, we focus on others.

When pain comes to us, do we meet it? Or, do we chase it away and hope to deceive others or ourselves?

I’m okay, we say… while in the dark, in our hearts, we are not. We continue our hard bargains and distance from anyone and anything that might know or expose these deceits.

I have noticed the most critical among us will neurotically focus on the shortcomings (hypercriticism) and victories (envy) of those around them. Their beast becomes the external world. His or her “faults” are always the result of what is wrong with someone else or the world. They cannot love and accept what they see in the mirror, and do not even know the core Self.

There are those, too, whose sense of self becomes so integrated in saving the beast, they no longer exist except within the boundaries of the beast and his/her recovery. They are the pop-psych co-dependents. They love the prisoners, the addicts, the abusers… they hang on the dear thread of hope until there is no fiber of happiness. And yet, they would be… so happy, so happy… if they could only get the other to be free….

Then there are the submerged – the ones who dance with the inner beast and rarely come up to surface. They are the true loners, the shape shifters, the shamans. They are the rare. Even when we believe ourselves to be them, we are likely but a glimpse. The submerged are antithetical to humanity and are but a minute percentage of those who walk between the veil of here and elsewhere.

In the end story, the girl with the hopeful hold … and beast with the seething ache…

One of the preeminent challenges we face is self-awareness. Beyond present moment awareness, true self-awareness is perhaps more important. Self awareness doesn’t just end with the touchy-feely aspects of our current state, but reaches into our ugliest selves, the pimpled, scarred, wounded, raging, abusive aspects of us and says, “Yes, there you are.” If done with humility,this exploration may even inspire change, but only when these aspects are truly acknowledged and welcomed.

There is a monologue I return to in a movie called The Big Kahuna (screenplay by Roger Rueff), when Phil Cooper, played by Danny DeVito, has a candid conversation with another up-and-coming, ambitious sales rep about facing oneself, totally….

“I’m saying you’ve already done plenty of things to regret, you just don’t know what they are. It’s when you discover them, when you see the folly in something you’ve done and you wish that you had it to do over, but it’s too late. So you pick that thing up and carry it with you to remind you that life goes on, the world will spin without you, you really don’t matter in the end. Then you will gain character because honesty will reach out from inside and tattoo itself across your face.”

The reality is, the process of facing our “beast” is lifelong. Each time we believe we have etched his face in our mirror, new images manifest in the fog. Truth telling is a lifelong endeavor. It does not end with one story, one beast saved. It reaches into us, again and again, and calls out yet another monster until we learn that both beasts and beauties make good and necessary bedfellows.

Un-Schooled: Valuing What No One Else Can Tell You

The teacher who is indeed wise does not bid you to enter the house of his wisdom but rather leads you to the threshold of your mind.  ~Kahlil Gibran 

We are a society that values academia but questions knowledge. Education that does not come with an invoice is overlooked or deemed suspect. Students are funneled through grad schools, seminaries, mail-order certification courses, and retreats aimed to connect student with guru/teacher/master, the one who claims to have “the word”. There’s no end to the deluge of purchased thought and those willing to sell. Those who question this blind system of organized education are simply labeled uneducated, outlaw, savage, unenlightened, or delinquent. When education is criticized, said criticism pertains to problems in public schools, lack of funding for educators and low-income students, and failing state colleges. Rarely, does one read an article about the problems inherent in the institutionalization of learning. 

Quite possibly, the biggest challenge to learning in our purchased degree-driven society is though the discernment of both teacher and idea. Ours is a culture addicted to efficiency and immediacy. Where these addictions have grown something positive, there are numerous examples of technological and scientific advances. I need not go into the benefits in any great detail; modern man boasts on these accomplishments fervently. However, where we are left anemic is in the area of critical thinking. Independent thought, mastery of problem solving, and old-fashioned “gut smarts” are seldom encouraged when dealing with standards and benchmarks. These rare talents have resulted in a collective gullibility that has the United States as a whole susceptible to blind party allegiance, thoughtless to laws that are – peering in from outside – verging on fascist, and ever so willing to demonize other cultures, races, anyone who does not align with the dogma of the day. Riding the forefront of this wave are the educated and successful, those who believe they’ve done the right thing, deserve their spoils. These entitled souls are perhaps the least discerning among us, for they have built their lives around the system of principles that supports this grand illusion of deserved property and prestige.

On the flip-side of the madness of politics and corporate corruption, class war and hierarchy, we have emerging from the vindicated mists of spiritual liberation, survivalists, militants, cult heads, and new age teachers willing to pander their own spoiled salvation. Countless smart, enlightened folks have flocked to the deviant savior who offers respite from the modern machine. Never a unique proposition or creation, these gurus sell Native American or early Americana, Paganism or Buddhism, or any form of “authentic” knowledge born from those who came before.

In our quest for answers to life’s most important questions, we have grown subservient to the knowledge of others, while forgetting our own sense of truth, awareness, and perception. To make matters worse, we are pushing willful ignorance, entrenched educational systems, and academic debt onto future generations. Many of us, both young and old, now skip problem solving entirely in an immediate Google search frenzy for quick solutions. One common complaint I hear from teachers, is that their students no longer want to think through a problem to arrive at an answer; they simply want the answer. That’s what they are paying for, after all.

Far from luddite, self-exploration and independent learning are paramount to discovery and to re/evolution. The best thing we can hope for as lifelong students is to connect with the teacher whose response is “What do you think?” in lieu of the one with a costly answer. We hope to find the teacher who understands that his/her job is to merely crack open the door with infectious enthusiasm and experience-driven joy, imploring the student to enter in, not through ego and economics, but through a sheer happiness and authenticity in the delights of life’s lessons.

Nothing changes in an institutionalized system of processes and input/output function. This approach simply rewards worker bees with increasing debt and a head-full of “must do-s” for a mandated American life. And, how shall this logjam be moved? Through radical thinkers, the rebels, the revolutionary women and men willing to move away from the norm. Thanks to them, some of our most ingenious discoveries, inspiring art, and necessary social movements have been created.

Let us not forget that access to learning is within each of us. Academia provides the baseline and the all-important paper needed to obtain that insidious career, but learning is everyone’s right and responsibility. Questioning basic assumption becomes second nature when flexing the muscle of critical thought. It is in the wisdom of a grandfather who allows his granddaughter to make a mistake or two (or three) while learning how to fix a problem under the hood. It is with the mother who listens intently to her son’s struggles with self-esteem and encourages him to listen to his feelings and adjust his actions based on the lessons these feelings convey. And, it is with the professor who instills a deep love of questioning – moving beyond textbook to exploration and challenging his own concepts and ideas. It is in each of us who are brave enough to say “no” when something feels wrong, or “yes” when the path before us is too compelling to stay comfortably seated at home.

With all of the information now literally at our fingertips, it becomes ever more crucial to problem solve, deeply consider, and weigh outcome against proposition. Employing this level of inquiry and intuition will certainly bring you to a deeper understanding of your talents and abilities and will lead you to the teacher or academic path best suited to your style of learning and the true heart of knowledge.